I didn't understand this movie. (Spoilers)

You got all of that from Henry James novel? Interesting.

Most of the critiques I have read fall into two camps:

1. This is a classic 19th century ghost story.

2. The repression (sexual or otherwise) of 'Miss' the governess, her age, inexperience, isolation, huge responsibility and the untenable demands of her employer contribute to her slowly unravelling grip on reality. (a complex topic today and especially 107 years ago)

I believe it really started out as no.1, but many authors of that period (late 19th century) liked to write about the stifling oppression of society, especially on women.

Look at Thomas Hardy - The Mayor Of Casterbridge, The Woodlanders;
Edith Wharton's - House Of Mirth

These are also available on DVD.

Wow. That's amazing. And I think it says more about you than about the actual story.

I can't speak for the artistic liberties they may have taken with this particular version of the story, but in the original manuscript, there's nothing to suggest that either of the children was molested. Corrupted, yes, but to a Victorian this may have been something much more tame. For instance, kissing the hired hands while the children were watching.

Really, James constructed this story to be deliberately ambiguous. Not only do we never know if the ghosts are real or not, but the exact nature of the corruption is left to our imagination. As a result, people tend to project their own darkest fears onto the characters. You could just as easily say that Miss Jessel and Peter Quint are Satanists trying to recruit the children into their coven. You can't prove that's wrong any more than you can prove that another reading is right. He wanted to leave the terror undefined so that everyone could imagine the thing that horrifies them most. However, if you insist on choosing only one interpretation, the concensus among people who have studied this story seems to be that they were so open with their affair that the children witnessed sexual acts.

So really, if you are left wondering what the hell happened as the credits begin to roll, then the production was a success. You SHOULD be left ruminating on what you've seen for days, wondering what it mean, what actually happened. It should stay with you. In that respect, I'd say this was a success - it made you care enough to come online and ask about it, right?

The reply to TemporaryOne-1 theories:

Illogical: Quint and Jessel had a lon lasting sexual relationship, it was consensual (as told by Mrs Grose and revealed from letters). How, when and why did he rape her?

Wrong timing/order: as much as I remember, it was said (by Mrs Grose) that Quint died first, and Jessel later (she stayed for a while, then quit her job and left, and died a month after that); it was even mentioned as a possibility that she killed Quint because of jealousy.

Modern: child molesting is a top subject today, and there is almost no serious American movie that doesn't put it in the middle of the plot (usually as final top secret of family). That makes us expect and see it when there is no reason. As some of posters said, corruption was something completely different in 19th century. Touching someone's arm or revealing a knee would be morally more shocking than playing in hardcore movie would be today. Mrs. Grose's moral education didn't let her describe what was happening, even saying a word like "leg" wasn't allowed in decent conversation - so how could she explain?

Molestation: the very understanding that people can have sex without being married to each other was extremely improper for children in the eyes of 19th century English people. There was no need to see anything. And as for real molesting, though I find it not so probable (as I wrote above), I would never agree with your speculation that Jessel would preserve Flora and leave Miles to Quint. If there was any molesting, I don't think Jessel would object it. And even if so, remember that homosexuality was leading people to jail or madhouse (sometimes even punished by death penalty) while child molesting wasn't considered that important. So I couldn't imagine a 19th century person wilingly allowing someone (her lover!) homosexual relationship. She would probably rather save Miles instead of Flora.

I have to agree with other comments that your(temporaryone) take on the plot says more about you and modern plot lines than about the story itself. I haven't seen the movie but I just read then book (today)and there was no (none, zilch) allusion to child abuse or rape. Jessel and Quint were having an illicit relationship that they did not hide from the children. That is bad enough. Your suppositions about rape and abuse are unfounded and surprising.

The point of the book is to leave readers wondering about the sanity of the governess. An unreliable narrator (or two unreliable narrators in this case, b/c we're effectually hearing the tale from a man who loved the governess) is a well established plot device. The beauty of the tale is the duplicity the governess reads into all of the children's actions and her conviction that wickedness was happening around her. The fact that she was driven throughout her care of the children by her love of the master and her desire to please him is brilliant. While reading the story you can fully convince yourself of her sanity or insanity in every instance.

But all of this is beside the point of my reply. You have read much into the plot (which I'm sure James intended) but have somewhere gone astray. We don't know what Miles said to the boys at school, he could have been describing his dealings with ghosts or he could merely have been saying curse words. But nowhere in the story is there any foundation for your theories of rape and child abuse. Perhaps next time someone is asking for plot clarification, you should leave it to someone who's actually read the story.

Please read the book and then see either The Innocents or this version. I think you'll have some of the answers to your question. The book explains the title in at least a couple of sections.

Rachel

Hi AliceGelhausInWonderland,

Yes I'm still around. I hardly ever post but I'm on here a lot.

Thanks for your reply, I can hardly believe it was 5 years ago I asked this question. To be honest I don't really remember a lot about the movie so I hope you didn't spend too much time on your answer.

I didn't watch it for a class, I just saw that it was going to be on TV and decided to watch it as I thought I'd heard the title before and it sounded interesting.

Maybe I'll catch it again sometime.

Thanks again.

"I think you'll find one gets more respect as a humble civil servant than a homicidal maniac."

I completely disagree. My view is that there were no ghosts at all. That they are purely in Miss's mind and that she is actually mentally ill with a definite religious element, the fact that she is a pastor's daughter probably supporting her feelings about the children being corrupted. There is no corroborating evidence that she saw Quint at all. All she said was that she saw a man with red hair who wore fine clothes without a hat and then the servant provided a name which Miss then expanded upon. Miss Jessell was only described as a woman in black which again the servant agreed with the delusion. Before the letter from the school Miss had no issue with children being corrupted but was watching Miles with suspicion from the time he entered the house. She then saw behaviour that she thought fitted her theory of there being ghosts that the children could also see. She then decided that the children were mocking her etc as she continued on with her sleep deprivation and a continued paranoid mental illness (possibly schizophrenia as she is having auditory and visual hallucinations). She then confronted Flora which made the servant doubt her which is why she agreed with taking Flora away and was actually scared of Miss which is why she said she believed her right at the end. Miss then killed Miles possibly by accident or as a 'saving' him action which is common in cases of infanticide by the mother figure. The lack of support from the uncle meant that she was free to fall further into her delusion as the servants wouldn't feel that they could confront her as she was running the household, "running a tight ship".
I think it's worth watching again with the mindset that the suicide at the beginning and the deaths of Miss Jessell and Quint are actually red herrings. Then if you look at all the ghost stuff as hallucinations the children just seem like children, who are sometimes naughty and would wind their governess up. I think that Miles did see inappropriate behaviour between Miss Jessell and Quint and possibly quite graphic inappropriateness or he heard inappropriate details from Quint which he then told to his friends at school which would lead to expulsion from school if it was deemed corrupting to the other boys ie because of their age, maybe in older boys it would have been excused. So yeah I reckon paranoid schizophrenia which gives the film a really good depth. I don't know if the book would support this though, it's probably just this adaption!